Albert CardonaNov 28, 2022

3,013 neurons, half a million synapses: the complete #connectome of the whole #Drosophila larval brain!

Winding, Pedigo et al. 2022. "The connectome of an insect brain" https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.28.516756v1

We’ve mapped and analysed its circuit architecture, from sensory neurons to brain output neurons, as reconstructed from volume electron microscopy, and here is what we found. 1/

#neuroscience #connectomics #vEM #volumeEM

Show thread@dickretiredNov 28, 2022
@albertcardona Fantastic achievement. Now the question arises whether studying drosophila will tell us principles of brain function that generalise to zebra fish, mice, and primates.
Show threadAlbert Cardona

@dickretired Thank you! I, for one, I'm enthusiastic at the ability to now formulate computational models of the #Drosophila brain on the basis of the known #connectome, and to explore the model experimentally thanks to the thousands of single-cell type genetic driver lines (GAL4 lines) for the optogenetic manipulation and monitoring of neural activity of all these neurons. Note that celll types in #Drosophila larvae are most often a single pair of left-right symmetric neurons.

#neuroscience

Nov 28, 2022 at 5:19pmWeb
Show thread@dickretiredNov 28, 2022
@albertcardona There is no doubt that we need simple models of the brain and simple behavior, eg zebra fish moving up v down. It is the only way we have a chance of understanding the whole system at work. We just have to hope that the results will generalise to mice and primates. But we have to study them too. Otherwise we will never find out.
Show threadSimon SchultzNov 28, 2022
@albertcardona @dickretired and we have to then hope the mouse and primate results generalise to humans… However I would say it depends on your question: these organisms can be of interest without the need for such generalisation. For instance, the motion detection algorithm used in the Logitech optical mouse is an implementation of the Reichardt correlator, discovered in beetles and characterised mechanistically in flies…
Show thread@dickretiredNov 28, 2022

@neuralengine @albertcardona

i agree that any animal and any brain is worth studying for its own sake. But the hope in science is that simple models will provide an entry into understanding more complex ones.

Show threadSimon SchultzNov 28, 2022
@dickretired @albertcardona I certainly agree with that.
Show threadAlbert CardonaNov 29, 2022

@dickretired @neuralengine We've argued as much: by carefully selecting representative organisms, chosen among those with a complete set of body parts yet of small, tractable dimensions, we can infer the archetypal neural architecture of each bauplan. And generalize within its branch of the phylogenetic tree, and compare to determine what's unique and what's different, and the correlations with behaviour.

"Neural architectures in the light of comparative connectomics" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959438821001185

Show threadLuiz PessoaNov 28, 2022
@neuralengine @albertcardona @dickretired
Brains are just too beautiful to not be studied 🙂